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Review Summary

From "The Marseillaise" to "We Shall Overcome," there has probably never been a revolution that did not use songs to give voice to its aspirations or rally the morale of its adherents. As the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim remarks in "Amandla!," a documentary directed by Lee Hirsch, the toppling of apartheid may be a special case, the first revolution ever to be conducted "in four-part harmony." Mr. Ibrahim's observation, which supplies this restless, moving film with its subtitle, points to the central role that music  in the streets, on records, in prison and in exile  played in black South Africa's long struggle for liberation from white domination. "Amandla" is the Xhosa word for power, and the film certainly lives up to its name.  A. O. Scott